It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters sounds off.
It's such good shit. A monster, concudell, a woman. You got
grown ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter. Come over here. Oh
my god, we're only an hour in. You have legs. They've made
Solo a monster. I was ninety nine percent positive. It was just chessed
up. Now I want out of my contract if I don't care what I
want. Busy weekend in Japan, we had two all time greats colliding for
the first time ever for pro wrestling. Noah aj Styles back in Japan for
the first time in about five years, beating Naomichi Marfuji. It ate great
match. I saw the highlights. Can't wait to see the entire thing.
On that same show, they announced the A Block and B Block competitors in
their N one Victory Tournament, which is similar to the G one and each
block this year includes one star from NXT, Josh Briggs in the A Block
and Tabion Heights and the B Bloc, who recently joined the No Quarter Catch
Crew. At the same time that show was taking place, Marigold held its
Summer Destiny event at Sumo Hall and Eo Sky made her return to Japan with
a win over Utami Hayashishida. Again, I only saw the highlights, but
what I saw look great. You know, when Eo wrestles in Japan,
she just adds a little bit more than what we see from her in WWE.
It's like she's holding back on us. You think Rossio Galo was holding
his breath during that Money in the Bank match last weekend. I thought somebody
was going to die watching that. He's probably sitting there thinking, please,
please let Eo make it out of the match of one Piece so I don't
lose my co main event. That's what I'm going to be thinking when Swerve
Strickland works that blood and Guts match on Dynamite next week. He's in our
main event at the House of Glory show. Forty eight hours later, I
said EOS match was the co main event. That's because Julia returned to action
from her broken wrist in the main event, losing to former NXT star Sirey
to crown the first ever Marigold World Champion. I think that might have been
Julia's final match before coming to NXT. They've got their Great American Bash show
coming up in a few weeks and then No Mercy on September first. She's
either showing up at No Mercy or having her first match at No Mercy against
Rock San Perez, and we will be seated when she finally arrives. And
she's not the only arrival to talk about this week. This is episode eight
seventy of The Sola Monster Sounds Off for Sunday, July fourteenth, twenty twenty
four. We passed eighty one thousand subscribers on YouTube this week, so thank
you for that, and thank you to those who have supported, including my
paper producers. You could always make a donation if you so choose on the
Solomonster dot com. I want to say thank you to Big B Bryant,
Vissera, The Diamond, Dallas Nance Machine, Harrison Soapp, Velvet Revolver,
Robert Murray, Iowan Corn Farmer, Jesse Lambfeir Daredevil, Doug Lippert, The
Portland Pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Ms Madness, Michelle Mills Knight Stalker and
if Alsaphar The Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord Road Warrior, Roderick Welch Fight Them
All, David Fields Best in the Game, Trey Porter and Killshot Keith Hart.
And again if you would like to support the show and make a donation,
we are always welcoming rookies to the roster here so you hear these legends.
Their names are mentioned every single week, but we are certainly always willing
to bring some people up from that XT So you can go to the Solomonster
dot com and find the link there at the top of the page. I
mentioned the House of Glory show before High Intensity. It's our biggest show of
the summer. It's coming up on Friday, July twenty sixth at the NYC
Arena in Jamaica, Queens with the return of Swerve, Strickland and Print Nana,
and this time they are bringing the aw World Championship with them. Swerve
is going to be taking on Amazing Red. Mike Santana defends his hog World
Heavyweight title against the debuting Zilla ba Tu. The bloodline will never end,
it just gets bigger. So you can get your tickets now at hog Wrestling
dot Net or stream the show live on Triller TV. And you can listen
to my dulcet tones which will sound a lot better than I do now when
I'm not sick and just announced we are making our Chicago debut Thursday, September
fifth at Logan Square Auditorium. That's two nights before aw comes to Chicago for
all Out. Tickets are on sale for that one as well. I hope
I get to s see some of you there in Shytown. Last week,
I talked about John Cena retiring from WWE next year. He came out last
weekend of Money in the Bank and made the announcement that twenty twenty five is
going to be his final year in the ring, and I threw out some
ideas and some names of potential opponents for him before he wraps up. One
name that I mentioned was cmpunk, and I said that I would book one
last John Cena cm Punk match to headline the first Raw on Netflix in January.
I didn't get into all of these specifics of what I would do for
Sena that year, which I did on Tuesday Night Titan, so I wanted
to mention it here too and just expand on it a little bit more because
it is a topic of conversation. People are trying to fantasy book the final
year of John Cena. There's been some debate about whether Sena really is the
greatest of all time. That's the tagline the WWE has given him. They've
been marketing him that way for now a number of years. That was a
Vince McMahon thing, and that's really all it is. It's a way for
them to market him. Everybody who's going to have a different answer as to
the question, you know, is he the goat? Sena himself has said
that he thinks Roman Reigns is the greatest of all time. I do not
believe Roman Reigns is the greatest of all time. Well, Roman Reigns be
the greatest of all time. I don't know. He's not done yet.
I can't say I love Brett Hart, but you know, Brett's my goat
in terms of matches, but he didn't do the kind of business that the
all time greats did, so by those metrics, he wouldn't be the goat.
Neither would Sean Michaels. Unless you're just looking at pure talent, you
know, if that's your primary metric, that opens the conversation up. I
mean to a lot of people like Brett and Sean and Kurt Angle. You
could expand that out beyond just WWE and You've got Rick Flair and Terry Funk
and a bunch of others, But the two most important figures talent wise in
WWE in the last forty years are Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve. Austin
Rock would be up there right behind them. Sena had the longevity over all
of them, so did the Undertaker. But I can't put them ahead of
Hogan in Austin. I just can't. I can't put Undertaker ahead of them.
I can't put Sena ahead of them. Were it not for those two
exploding in popularity when they did and getting pushed when they did, there may
not be a WWE right now, and if there was, it would not
be nearly as big as it is making billions of dollars every single year.
That does not take away from the success that John Cena has had. You
could say that Vince McMahon relied too heavily on him for too long, he
at the expense of creating new stars on his level. That's absolutely true.
That is absolutely a valid argument to make. But where would they have been
without John Cena. Probably not in a good place. That's exactly why he
being. Vince relied on Sena as his top guy for so long. You
know that that and Sina went along with whatever they wanted him to do.
You know, he wasn't known to be a pest. He wasn't known to
be a pain in the ass and always arguing decisions and saying no. He
wasn't known to be a politician like you hear stories about certain guys. Now
I'm not saying he never did politic. I mean the JTG story is a
classic about him using the words loyalty and respect in an interview once with the
WWE magazine and instantly realizing, oh shit, that probably wasn't a good idea.
Yeah, and JTG is begging the editor please leave that part out.
So I think he may have been talking about his partner. He may have
been talking about Shad, you know, loyalty and respect part of what Sina
was calling himself at the time. So he's begging the editor please leave that
part out, and they said, oh, yeah, sure, sure we'll
leave that out, and of course they published it anyway. And so this
was around the time JTG was about to finally get his own shades on WWE
shot and it was his first real piece of merch. He was a big
Brett Hart fan growing up, so he wanted to have glasses like Brett did.
And he claims in his book that one day Scena corners him in the
men's room and says, hey, you know those new shades that you had
coming out, Yeah, not anymore now we're even. Now, we're even.
Stephen and JTG never did get those shades made. But I remember hearing
that for the first time, and I'm like, what kind of maniac reacts
that way? Yeah, But for every story like that, you've got a
story like Tyros. You know, talk about how when he was at WrestleMania
twenty eight and it looked like his match was about to be cut for time.
This was in Miami. That was the night Scena Wrestle Rock for the
first time, right, once in a lifetime, which turned out to be
twice in a lifetime. So huge main event coming up. Scene is at
Gorilla and Funkasaurus is at Gorilla and Sina is hearing this and he leans over
and he tells him. He goes, you know, I've got to go
to the bathroom. What do you think? Six minutes? Eight minutes and
Tyrus picked up on what he was doing. He said uh yeah, six
minutes ought to be good and Sina disappeared. They couldn't find him. You
can't find him, you can't go to the next match, right, I
mean, he's about to go out there for this big main event and nobody
could find him. So what they did was they sent the Funkosaurus out there
to do a dancing bit on stage, so at least he was able to
get his WrestleMania moment. So there's a lot lot of like stories like that,
mostly good stories, but there's some weird ones too. Sina is just
a he's a weird guy. But Sina was a draw for them last year
when he came back for a couple of months during the Hollywood Writers' strike,
and this retirement tour is going to do big business for them. It's actually
genius on ww Eastpark because every single show that John Cena is going to be
on, and he's claimed that, you know, he's going to be doing
anywhere from thirty to forty dates, you know, TV and pls and live
events, not every live event, but you know enough of them where you
can get forty dates out of this guy. You know, he hasn't been
full time or even part time in many, many years. You know,
he's got a full fledged career for himself in TV and movies right now.
So it's a big thing for WWE to get Seena back for an entire year
like that, Every single show that he is on is going to be a
sellout or a near sellout. You wonder how much longer could this hot streak
that w he is on continue for because they're they're packing in the buildings and
they're selling out, maybe not every week, but a lot of weeks.
Now you add the added attraction of John Cena. This is his final match
in Chicago, this is his final match in New York, this is his
final match everywhere is going to be his final match, last time to come
see John Cena live in the ring. You don't think they're going to sell
those shows out, of course they are. WrestleMania in Las Vegas was going
to be huge anyway, but now they can promote the fact that John Cena
is going to be working his last ever WrestleMania match. Every pl match that
he does is going to be his last ever, last Royal Rumble, last
elimination Chamber. So the question is what story or stories do you tell with
him. John Cena has not won a televised singles match since Super Showdown in
twenty eighteen against Triple H. That means coming into twenty two, twenty five,
when he comes back in January and we see him, he will be
on a losing streak of seven years in singles matches. You can break a
mirror and have bad luck for that long and it ends. And that's how
long John Cena has gone winless by the time he comes back in singles matches
seven years. I would not have him come back and just win in his
first match back. You instantly kill the story Obscena trying to shake off the
bad luck and get back in the win column. Why would you do that?
You know, John Cena versus CM Punk. If you do that on
the first raw on Netflix, like I've suggested, Punk should win, keep
the losing streak going. You know, he enters the Royal Rumble with the
idea that he's going to try to win the Royal Rumble one more time.
It's already won it twice, and he's going to try to kickstart his path
to title number seventeen, which is the other story they need to tell with
him. It's the chase for seventeen try to set the all time WWE record.
Nobody has ever won more world titles in this company than John Cena already
won sixteen of them. But because of the whole Rick Flair thing, you
know, seventeen would trump Flair and would set the record. So I would
have him in the Royal Rumble Match and he should fail, so then he
has to qualify for the Elimination Chamber, and guess what, he loses there
too, And then we get to WrestleMania. Now we already know it's going
to be his last WrestleMania, but he says, let's say, you know,
going into it, if I can't win a WrestleMania, I know I've
been on this horrible bad luck streak. I don't know if I've got it
anymore. If I can't win a WrestleMania, I don't deserve to be here
anymore. I don't deserve to have this retirement tour for the rest of the
year. So if I lose a WrestleMania, then WrestleMania w be my final
match. The retirement tour ends early, and then at WrestleMania he finally wins,
and that is when the real chase for seventeen begins and he starts stringing
together some big wins against people like aj Styles who I would love to see
him back in the ring with Sena and Seamus one more time, Sena and
Logan Paul for the first time. I'd love to see him work with guys
like Chad Gable and Dominic Mysterio and bron Breaker until eventually he runs into the
World heavyweight champion Gunther. Yeah, before the Rock started calling himself the Final
Boss, Gunther was the real final Boss. That's his chance to win number
seventeen and he falls short. I don't think he needs to win the championship,
and I know some people are gonna hard disagree with me on that.
I don't think he needs to win the title. Then the question after that,
because who's his final opponent going to be? If he's going all the
way to December, who is his final opponent? I think Sena against Randy
Orton could be the WrestleMania match. You know, for all the matches they've
had, they've never had that singles match of WrestleMania. But I would not
be opposed to saving Orton for the end of the year. It's his final
opponent. You know, as part of this new media rights deal with NBCU
for SmackDown, because SmackDown's coming back to USA in a few months, thank
god the fuck away from Fox. But as part of that deal, don't
forget, they're obligated to four annual primetime specials on NBC. They can build
an entire network special around John Cena's last stand, the end of an era.
They usually run Madison Square Garden for a house show the day after Christmas
pretty much every year as far back as I can remember, many many years.
The day after Christmas is a Friday next year, so maybe they bump
it to Saturday and they run the Garden that weekend. Would be a big
state for him to close out his career one last match Madison Square Garden.
But that's kind of the general sense of how I would book John ced his
final year. I think you have to tell those two stories, first ending
the losing streak and then once he does stringing together a bunch of wins to
put him in position to challenge for one last world title. And you don't
have to blow off the title chase story for WrestleMania. That's the other question.
A lot of people are going to say, well, how do you
not have him challenge for number seventeen and maybe win it at WrestleMania. It's
WrestleMania, right, that's the biggest WrestleMania match you could do with them.
Well, I don't like it because he still has another was the nine months
left to go after that? Are you really going to put the title on
him one of the titles and have him hold it for several months? You
could, I suppose, but that's not what I would do. So if
you blow the story off of WrestleMania and he doesn't win the title, now
you've blown off, really now the last big story that you can do,
and now you know you've got his last match in every city and everything.
It's not like, yeah, it's going to do bad business. But why
blow that story up so quickly? Why blow two really good stories for him
off in the first three or four months of the year. You got another
nine months to go. Save that for later in the year. Why not
SummerSlam? Now they have not announced the location yet, Interestingly, for SummerSlam
in twenty twenty five, we already know where SummerSlam is coming in twenty twenty
six, it's coming to Minneapolis, probably going to come to Indianapolis in twenty
twenty seven, two nights. We don't know yet where it's going to be
next year. Here's a suggestion for you. How about Jillette Stadium, home
of the New England Patriots. Right scene as a Massachusetts guy, West Newbery,
do it just before the NFL preseason begins. It could be a homecoming
for John Sena versus Gunther in Foxborough for the World Heavyweight Championship. So as
I say that, when you really think about it, it's like, man,
they do that. If they do that, if they build throughout the
entire year into the summer for Sena, right back to his winning ways,
trying to get number seventeen. He goes to the main event of Summer Slam
at Gillette Stadium against the real final boss, right against Goonther World heavyweight title.
Man, it's hard not to see him win number seventeen there. It
would almost be too good to pass up. Even I would have to seriously
consider giving him the win there, because you know, it's all about those
moments. It's like the Brian Danielson thing and aaw, he won the Owen.
He's getting the championship match at Wembley Stadium. I don't think he needs
to beat Swerve, but if he does, I wouldn't hate it. How
could I ever hate on Brian Daniel. He's one of the greatest of all
time. He gets one last big moment, I'm sure the fans would love
it, but it doesn't have to happen. You know, Brian Danielson's legacy
and his Hall of Fame status is already cemented whether or not he wins the
world title in aaw John cen Is legacy in Hall of Fame status has already
cemented whether he retires with sixteen world titles or seventeen world titles. You know,
all you're doing is patting their resume. The number of titles doesn't matter.
It's about those moments that you create for people. You know, a
lot of times we look at these stats and we analyze them like it's a
real sport, but it's not. It's entertainment. How many championships you win
doesn't matter because you're not actually winning anything. And I think we lose sight
of that sometimes, myself included. It's about the story that you're trying to
tell, and if they tell the story just right, and it makes sense
for John Steena to win number seventeen, then he'll win number seventeen. Sometimes
the real story is in the chase, and it can be better when you
fall just short. Where scene his story ends up depends on how WWE chooses
to tell it. Hey, it's Chris van Vleet. Thank you for letting
me pop in here for just a second. After this episode is done,
go check out my podcast, Insight with Chris Fanvleet. All of the interviews
that you may have seen on YouTube are also available in audio form. We
have two new guests every week, and some recent episodes include a two hour
interview with the Undertaker, also Booker, t Adam Copeland, Raymisterio, Christian
Cage, Joe Hendry, I said his name, Mark Henry, and many
more. Cody Road is also going to be a guest in just a few
days. Listen to Insight with Chris Faanvleet on Spotify, Apple or wherever you
get your podcasts. One of the top stories this week after a great showing
against Mercedes Monet at Forbidden Door in a match where her PW insider Mercedes came
into it with the idea with the goal of making her opponent Stephanie Viquier should
send a bottle of rose to Miss Monette because she has left CMLL and New
Japan Pro Wrestling and signed with WWE. Yeah, I swear I've heard at
least three different pronunciations of this woman's name the one time, I'm rooting for
WWE to actually change someone's name, and Meltzer says that she's keeping it,
but we'll stick with Vicaire. If I'm wrong, I apologize. But she
walked out there against Mercedes with three belts and now she has none. CMLL
said that Vicaire had left both the promotion and New Japan as well, effective
immediately, and would not be participating in her scheduled match at Fantasticamania in San
Jose last night. Is said to have received offers from both WWE and AW
coming off the Forbidden Door match with Monette. She wrestled Tessa Blanchard on Tuesday
and won the match, and it was pretty clear from her body language and
her embrace of Tessa when the match was over, just the way that she
was acting, that she knew this was going to be it for her and
Tessa seemed to know it also, but that means, you know, with
her winning that she left the promotion without dropping her CMLL Women's World title or
women's tag team title that she held with Zaoxis. So they stripped her and
they held a triple threat match last night with Luvia representing CMLL, Viva Van
representing New Japan, and Willow Nightingale sent in to represent AW. And Willow
Nightingale became the first US born champion in the history of the CMLL tipe last
night. Yeah. Over the past year, she's held the New Japan Strong
Women's title, she won the Owen Hart Cup, last year she won the
TVs title, and now she has won the CMLL Women's title. Not bad,
not bad for Willow. Vicare was said to have had offers from WWE
and AW, but never seriously considered the AW offer. She grew up in
Chile. She's not Mexican. I mean, I've seen people calling her Mexican.
She's not Mexican. She's Chilean. She grew up watching WWE and her
goal was always apparently to work there. That was her dream. She even
had a tryout match with them in twenty eighteen, but they weren't interested in
her at the time. Had she taken the AW deal, she would have
still been allowed to work dates for a CMLL in New Japan, who of
course are partners now with AW, and also whatever other international bookings that she
may have had, like the Rev Pro Anniversary show in London next month that
she was advertised for. She was advertised for the Fantastic Comania pay per view
last night, three months ahead of time, so they were not happy about
her pulling out five days before the show. Now, WWE of course doesn't
care. They want what they want, they don't much care about how it
affects other promotions, although they did allow Carl Anderson to drop his never open
weight title of the Tokyo Dome after he and Luke Gallows came back to the
company, but that was something that Anderson insisted on before he signed. He
wanted to do business the right way. He didn't want to disrespect ghetto in
New Japan, and so he was able to work that out and go back
and drop the belt. In this case, there was a good reason for
WWE not wanting her on the Fantasticamania show yesterday because they wanted her on their
show while Willow was winning the CMLL women's title in San Jose. Stephanie Vicaier
and made her WWE debut last night in Mexico City with a win over Eila
Dawn. She already made her debut and she'll be appearing tonight at their event
in Monterey. They wanted that deal done so they could debut her on their
Mexican tour. That's why she didn't drop her titles and do business on her
way out. Sounds like this all came together very quickly. I see this
woman taking shit from a lot of people online who have no idea what they're
talking about, and they were popping off before she was even announced for those
WWE shows this weekend. How could she? How unprofessional? Even after that,
Even after that, they may still think that it was unprofessional of her
not to first drop her titles before leaving and do business. I can understand
CMLL being upset, but if they or anyone else when I say they,
I mean these people online, if they or anybody else wants to be upset.
First of all, unless you are a CML who really liked watching her
in CMLL, it's just fucking weird for any fan to be bothered by where
this woman chooses to work. And I know that part of it is the
tribalism thing, because she was on an AW pay per view and there were
a lot of AW fans who commented at the time they thought she looked better
in that match than Mercedes. They were very impressed by Stephanie. Maybe they
hadn't even seen her work before and they were hoping that they would get to
see more of her, or maybe she would sign with AW. And so
now I'm sure many of them are very upset. The normal ones, of
course, are not going to have an issue with it. They're going to
be like, oh, okay, I'm happy for her. But the psychotic
ones, the psychotically obsessed ones, of course, are going to be freaking
out because they think it's some kind of betrayal of some kind that she was
on the AW show and now she's working for the enemy. You know,
she's working for WWE. It's just fucking weird. She can't be in two
places once. She could only work one show last night. This was the
deal that was presented to her. She moved to Mexico when she was sixteen
years old to become a professional wrestler. She tried out with WWE once before.
She didn't get it, so she improved and she got better and she
made a name for herself. She got over big on that pay per view
two weeks ago. They probably saw that and they hit her with a great
offer, or or if Tony Kahan made her an offer, maybe she got
word to WWE that, hey, I got this great offer over here.
Just wanted to see if there might be any interest from you guys before I
commit to this deal. And they said, wait, hold up, don't
sign anything, let's work something out. We don't know who hit up who
first, probably the former, but it doesn't matter. She took the offer
that was presented to her. How can anybody falter for that. I don't
understand why she is a catch shit frankly from anybody. Apparently she had a
longer term deal with CMLL. They have let people out of their deals early
in the past when they get a big offer to go to WWE or AW.
So having a long term CMLL contract doesn't necessarily mean you're locked in for
the duration. Probably anywhere but Triple A they would let you go, but
they do so with the understanding that they will they being the wrestler who wants
to leave, will do business on the way out. So if they're a
champion, they'll drop their title, or they'll you know, let them book
them in some kind of send off match. They can get a big,
you know house out of it. That didn't happen here. She just up
and left, yes, because WWE felt they needed her now for this weekend.
It's not like WWE gives a shit. They could not care less.
They have no relationship with CML, they have no relationship with NU Japan.
Could she have asked to be allowed to drop her titles first before joining.
Who's to say she didn't. Maybe she did, and they said no,
we would ordinarily we'd let you, but we can't do that. We need
you for this weekend. Like we don't know that. And even if she
didn't, who cares. So what, she's an independent contractor. She can
do what she wants now. She took the CMLL Women's title to NXT and
dropped it in the garbage can, that would be a different story. But
otherwise I just think this is all silliness. But aw is proven would be
a nice recruitment tool for WWE, haven't they? They suddenly took a great
interest in Dragon Lee after his appearances on Dynamite too. Now, I'm not
saying he wasn't already on their radar or somebody didn't already recommend him. I
think it might have been Androte who recommended him, but you know, or
that she wasn't on their radar either. But boy, you know, it
took all of two weeks after she showed up on that pay per view to
lock her down. Yeah, it's not like she hasn't been killing it for
at least a year now down in Mexico. Right, Why did it take
this long? She's been the top female star down there for a while now.
But now she's going to have the biggest possible platform to showcase her talents,
and I think she's going to do very well. That's a big pickup
for WWE. Shawn Michael's already posted a tweet welcoming her to Orlando, so
it looks like when she starts full time it's going to be with NXT.
NXT is also where Julia is going to be starting soon. Poor Roxanne,
Poor Roxty. If Julia doesn't make mince meat out of her, than Stephanie
will. But boy, you know, you look at the talent that WWE
has right now and that they have been recruiting. You had Julia on her
way in, Stephanie Viquierre on her way in Jordan. Grace is undoubtedly going
to end up there early next year when her TNA contry expires, not a
doubt in my mind. There's been a lot of chatter about Delta, which
is not just some shitty airline. She's an independent wrestler. I didn't know
too much about her myself, but she's an indie wrestler out of Australia.
She's been wrestling for Riot City Wrestling, which is the same promotion where Rio
Ripley made her name before signing with WWE. WWE held tryouts in Australia when
they were down there for Elimination Chamber earlier this year, and the belief this
is not confirmed, but the belief is that she signed already with NXT and
that they're just holding off on the announcement until they unveiled their next class of
PC recruits. Now I've seen some of her work. She's really good.
So you've got those names, plus you've got Rhea, You've got Bianca EO
Sky Bailey. Charlotte Flair is going to be back soon. Becky Lynch is
eventually going to be back. Tiffany Stratton is going to be a huge star.
Osca is out hurt, but she'll be back. Jade Car Gill is
still a work in progress, but she's going to be a megastar regardless.
Then in NXT, you've got Roxanne, and you've got Lola Wece, and
you've got soul Ruka. I mean, they are stacked when it comes to
their women's division, so is aw By the way, They've got Tony Storm
and Mariah May and Mercedes Monet. They just got Britt Baker back. Jamie
Hater will be back eventually. They've got Athena toiling Away and Ring of Honor,
but they've got her under Ki Trac, Chris Statlander, Willow Nightingale,
Hit Kyushida, thunder Rosa. You know that's not even all of them.
This is the best that the women scene has looked ever ever in the history
of women's wrestling in the US. I'm talking domestically, okay, I'm not
talking Japan and all japan women in the early nineties and stardom and all that,
because that's you factor them in there and you've got a competition there.
But I'm talking domestic. In this country, the women's scene has never been
better and more stocked with talent than it is right now. And to that
end, there is a story going around that WWE is considering creating two women's
mid card titles, a women's Intercontinental title in a women's US title. Chelsea
Green even commented on The mass Man Show and admitted that she doesn't know anything
past what's being rumored online. That's all it is right now, is a
rumor, but she is hoping and praying that it's true. She said that
they have so much talent, not everybody is able to be showcased all the
time. So for that mid level girl who maybe the fans don't see as
someone who can lead a division, adding another title could be a way to
help elevate them. I'll tell you what you know. As they continue to
add more talent, it becomes harder to argue against having at least one secondary
title. And I'm usually against adding more championships because I just think they have
enough as it is, and the women's tag team titles haven't elevated anybody.
You know they're just used as a story device when it's convenient, and not
a very good one. But with all the talent they have right now and
that they have in the pipeline coming in, I'd be fine with them adding
a women's intercontinental title as a test on the raw brand. I don't think
we need two at the same time. I think you start with one and
you see how things go before adding another one. You know, the minute
they announced that they were adding a women's North American title in NXT, I
knew it was only a matter of when and not if they did something similar
on the main roster. Once she wins the title back from liv Morgan,
Rhea Ripley is going to have that women's world title on Lockdown on Monday nights.
I look at that raw roster, for example, and someone like Keana
James, who got called up in the draft. She's had exactly two matches
and a grand total of ten minutes of ringtime since debuting since being called up.
Someone like her could benefit from something like a women's Intercontinental title. Someone
like Zoe Stark. Zoe is not winning any world titles anytime soon, but
Zoe getting an IC title run instead of just doing tags because they have nothing
better for her to do. Could benefit her and don't laugh. Even someone
like Maxine Dupree. Maxine's gotten a little bit better than she was when they
first put her on TV, just a little. She's learning, but she's
also not getting a ton of ringtime. They made her into such a sympathetic
character in this Alpha Academy story. If she continues to improve, you could
build a story around Maxine trying to win her first championship. I don't want
to see her sniffing the Women's World title, but her chasing for the IC
title that's more realistic to me. And I'm just using her as an example
for down the road. If she continues to improve, and again she's a
sympathetic character, she's like a I could see a story like that working.
The reason a women's mid card title wasn't feasible before is because they didn't have
a lot of depth in their division. When they split the rosters between Raw
and Smackdann, you had women on Raw, women on Smackdan. Maybe you
had four or five women on both shows. Maybe there was not a lot
of depth there. There was not a lot of talent there. Quite frankly,
the way they have now, they had women, that doesn't mean they
could all wrestle. Back then, a lot of them were on the show,
not for the purposes of wrestling, let's be honest, and the women
were not a focal point of the show and the way that they are now,
So why the hell do you need more than one title? Right back
then it wouldn't have made sense. But I'm telling you, they keep adding
women at the pace that they are adding them, and they've got some really
good women that they have signed. It's not such a crazy idea anymore.
WWE announced on Tuesday that one of the voices of ESPN, Joe Testitour,
will be joining the WWE broadcast team later this summer. This was from their
statement, one of the most versatile and veteran voices in sports television, Testator
will join the company as a play by play broadcaster beginning this summer. In
his role, Testator will work alongside analysts Wade Barrett and Corey Graves. Michael
Cole and Pat McAfee. Will remain teamed up. With nearly three decades of
broadcasting experience, Testa Taur is widely considered one of the industry's foremost play callers.
He will remain in his role at ESPN and ABC, where since two
thousand and two he has been a key fixture on the network's coverage of college
football. He's called ESPN and ABC Saturday Night primetime games, the college Football
Playoff and more. Testator is well known as ESPN's blow by blow commentator,
having called memorable World Championship fights of Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, Terence Crawford,
among others. Additionally, he has led ESPN's Monday Night Football and has
called the NFL Pro Bowl and Wildcard Playoff games on ABC. He has found
success in entertainment as well, teaming with Rob Riggle and Stephen Curry on the
comedy competition Holy Molly. Note the fact that they said he would be working
with Corey Graves and Wade Barrett. They did not say that he was going
to be the play by play voice on SmackDown or that they would be calling
SmackDown together. It is possible they flip the announced teams heading into the Netflix
era, and maybe they want the three man booth on the three hour show.
They said Michael Cole and Pat McAfee are going to stick together. They
used to call SmackDown, and so would not at all surprise me to see
them back on SmackDown. And you take these three and put them on RAW,
three man booth on the three hour show. I mean, that's what
I expect RAW to be. I don't think Netflix is spending five billion dollars
for a three hour block of programming just to share it down to two.
While I would love that, I find that a little hard to believe.
I liked the job that Corey Graves did on play by Play. I thought
he adapted to the role very well. Uh the fact that he would,
you know, still be switched back like he wasn't money in the bank to
the color analyst role whenever he and Michael Cole would do those pls together probably
should have been a sign that it was never meant to be a permanent arrangement.
I'm not a big college football guy, but what I have heard of
Tessaitor, he is very good. He's got that great announcer voice. He's
a lifelong WWE fan, which helps that he's got the product knowledge right that
the play by play announcer needs the have for this job. He's led ESPN's
WrestleMania coverage each of the past three years. He was Nick Cohn's first media
client during CON's days as an agent. So this is yet another example of
Nick con reaching out, you know, reaching into his rolodex and reaching out
to one of his friends in the sports world to bring them in as an
announcer. Just because he's great at what he does in the sports world does
not necessarily mean it's going to translate well to wweight. I mean, let's
be honest here, Okay, let's take a look at what we have had
so far. Their batting average with sports announcers has not exactly been great.
Mara Ronalo, he's doing boxing an MMA, also a big wrestling fan.
He was excellent in NXT. Then he got called up to SmackDown and for
various reasons, he did not last very long. Ad Non Verk was brought
in by Nick Kahn to be the lead announcer on Raw because, wouldn't you
know it, Nick Khn was his agent before he came to WW eight.
Sound familiar. He was terrible in the role. He was gone six weeks
later, so they brought in Jimmy Smith, who was an MMA announcer to
replace him, and he was better, but he also did not last very
long. They replaced him as the lead voice on Raw with Kevin Patrick,
who had called Major league soccer games previously, and that's what he's doing again
now. He was never a good fit for the role. He lasted less
than a year before being moved to smack Down and then he was let go.
I hope things work out this time, but as you can see,
it's been a revolving door. Until we hear him in the role, it's
impossible to know if this is going to last or not because usually, like
with ad Non WK and Kevin Patrick, and I really I even said at
the time, We've got to give this guy time, right. I remember
that first night with Kevin Patrick, and I'm like, all right, it's
one night, right, Like, let's see where things are, like,
you know, four weeks from now, six weeks from now. But I
think after the first one or two appearances, you hear them in that role
and how they interact with their partners, and you have a pretty good sense
of whether or not this is going to work or not. So let's wait
and see how he sounds in the role, because otherwise it's just pos possible
to know if this is going to last. We're going to have a pretty
good sense after his first couple of shows whether or not this is going to
be a long term thing. This week's episode is sponsored by Express VPN.
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dot com slash solom Monster. Ria Ripley returned at the end of Raw Monday
night, just when it looked like Dominic mysterio was about to fold like a
cheap suit to Live Morgan after they won their mixed tag team match against Raymas
Stereo and Zelina Vega. So Dom finally got a win over his deadbeat dad.
He wound up on top of liv It looked like they were about to
kiss and Ria's music kid and the reaction was so great, not only from
the fans, but from Live too. I thought her reaction was just perfect.
She ran for her life after that, Rhea confronted Dom and then refused
to listen to him when he tried to explain himself. She's scheduled to open
the show tomorrow night, and we'll find out if she's cleared or not based
on whether or not we get the challenge to Live Morgan for a match at
SummerSlam. Her star power and just the way that the fans react when she
comes out, Rhea Ripley is just on another level right now. And according
to PW Insider, internally she's now listed as a babyface, which of course
she was always going to be when she came back. That's not a surprise,
it's just it's wild. How that works. Isn't it like liv Morgan
had her arm broken in storyline by Rhea Ripley. That was a way to
write her off the show. When Live had shoulder problems, they had Rha
injure her in the middle of the ring. She pilmonized her arm if I
remember, so, Liv Morgan comes back after months on the show. She
comes back and she's talking about her revenge tour, and she ends up being
the bad guy in all this. But that's just a testament to how over
Ria Ripley is and also how horny their male fan base is and female fan
base, you know, judging the post I see online, I think Ria
has just as many women lusting over her as she has men. I mean,
her popularity crosses many demographics. When her and Live have that first match,
though I don't think Rio Ripley should win that match. This story is
just too good to blow it off after one match. Dominic is going to
be involved in some way, officially or unofficially. Maybe it'll be a case
of whose corner is he going to be in? Like Elizabeth at WrestleMania five,
is she going to be in Hogan's corner? Is she going to be
in Savage's corner. She ended up in a neutral corner. Maybe that'll be
Dominic in this match. I don't think he turns on Ria, but I
do think that they need to find a way for Live to win or at
least not lose her title yet and keep it going for a little while longer.
Everybody assumes this woman is about to die, but they should make him
wait for it. Also on Raw, we had a head to head promo
in the middle of the ring with Seth Rollins and CM Punk. No Drew
mcinton because he was suspended after flipping out on Adam Pierce's money in the bank
after his failed cash in last weekend. Punk actually asked Pierce on Monday to
unsuspend McIntyre so that he could get him in the ring. So Pierce told
Punk, look, you stay home tomorrow night. So Punk is not going
to be well, he's not supposed to be on the show. That doesn't
mean he won't be there, but he has invited Drew McIntyre to come to
the show so they could have a discussion. And what you got out of
this segment on Monday is that Seth Rollins does not like CM Punk Right newsflash
I know what a surprise. He made that very clear, and that also
he told him not to get involved in his business, which is what Punk
did last weekend, and Punk feigned an apology to him, but he still
couldn't bring himself to actually do it without being sarcastic because he's a dick.
Actions have consequences, is what CM Punk said to Drew McIntyre before Rollins came
out. By the end of that promo, Rollins threw it right back at
Punk and warn him actions have consequences. Sure looks like there may have been
something to that little nugget that I shared with all you guys during my SmackDown
recap last week before Money in the Bank, when I told you that I
had heard that Seth Rollins was penciled in to be the special referee for the
Cmpunk Drew McIntyre match at SummerSlam. Assuming Punk is cleared in time, which
I expect him to be. I'd be very surprised if he wasn't. I
suppose it's still possible, and it sounded crazy at the time, but doesn't
sound so crazy now does It doesn't sound like the plan is for this to
be a triple threat match. And if it's not going to be a triple
threat match, but Rollins is going to be involved in some way, then
being the guest referee or the guest enforcer is the only other thing that would
make any sense. So I'd say it sounds pretty like that's what we're headed
for at SummerSlam, Ron Breaker, he did not win the Intercontinental title of
Money in the Bank, but they made it very clear on Monday Night that
he is still in the hunt when he left Sammy Zane and Iliya Dragonov laying
now. Sammy is defending the title on Raw Tomorrow Night against Dragonov. Gee.
I wonder if a certain someone is going to get involved in that match.
Looks like we may be heading for a triple threat for the title at
SummerSlam. On SmackDown, we had two championship matches all but confirmed for SummerSlam,
La Night and Logan Paul for the United States title. Logan Paul was
not there to sign the contract, but he will be on the show this
Friday. The man has been champion. I pointed this out on Friday Night.
Logan Paul has been the United States Champion since November. He has defended
the title twice since then hell of a champion, a hell of a champion
who has now been pinned two streat times in his last two matches. So
if you are one of these people assuming that La Night he's got to win
the title at SummerSlam, right, ask yourself this question, do you honestly
believe that they are going to beat Logan Paul three straight times? Because I
don't now, it's still early yet, I'm not going to make all my
Summer Slam predictions right now, but call me crazy. I think he's retaining
at SummerSlam. I have a feeling they're going to want to get at least
one more match out of these two before he drops it. And Cody Rhodes
told Solo Sikoa that he would talk to Nick all this and would see him
at SummerSlam for the WWE Championship. It's not the Summer Slam main event that
I wanted, but it's the Summer Slam main event that we're getting. That's
why Solo pin Coody of money in the bank to set this all up.
It's why they've been booking Solo as strong as they have lately and doing these
big heat segments with the bloodline, right, destroying Paul Hayman, destroying Randy
Orton. They demolished him on Friday Night, right in front of Cody,
who was tied up in the ropes and helpless to do anything about it.
Roman Reigns is coming back. I don't see the point in him coming back
before SummerSlam with three weeks to go. You saved that shit for SummerSlam.
Once that happens, Cody can move on, hopefully to Randy, who I
would imagine is not going to be very happy that he stuck his neck out
for Cody, only to get killed for it. And then Roman and Solo
they can start their story. We're gonna end up with two warring bloodline groups.
We're gonna get a war Games match out of it. I could see
it all coming. That'll take them through the end of the year. Jacob
fought too. He looked like a wrecking machine on Friday out there. I'm
thinking the direction maybe FA two against Kevin Owens, maybe to avenge what happened
to Randy Orton, because the Orton angle felt to me like a way to
write him off for SummerSlam. I don't think he's gonna have a match on
that show because I don't expect them to be back before then, but you
know, depending on how the personal family situation goes with Kevin Owens. You
know, his mom was rushed to the hospital last week. She might still
be there. I don't know how serious that still is. I don't know
how long he may be out for. But let's say they get Kevin Owens
back in the next couple of weeks. I just feel like that would be
the direction I assume for SummerSlam. I don't know. Again, he likes
to keep these cards very tight five or six matches. Maybe they don't have
room for a Jacob Faught two match on that show, but FO two against
Kevin Owens really should be. If they do it, it really should be
a Summer Slam match, and real quick. On NXT this week, we
got a Rascals reunion. Wes Lee looked like he was about to call it
quits when Trey Miguel and Zach Wentz, the former Nash Carter, showed up
straight out of TNA. It's part of this whole partnership between NXT and TNA.
It seemed pretty clear to me after the Battleground show last month that this
was coming. I thought it was going to happen a lot sooner, but
it looked even then like, okay, they're teasing Erascals, Arrival, Rascals
Reunion in the good a feud with Gallas and sure enough in the back later
on on Tuesday they were confronted by Gallas And now we have a six man
tag on the show this week, and they brought back Joe Hendry. Say
his name and he appears as Trick Williams mystery partner. Out came Joe Hendry
against Ethan Page and Sean Spears. He came off like a bigger star than
any of the actual NXT talent in the match, even got to pin Shawn
Spears to win the match for his team. And Joe Hendry is one of
the six men challenging for the TNA World Title at their slam Aversary pay per
view next weekend with Moose, Nick Nemeth, Frankie Kazari and Josh Alexander and
Steve Macklin. What do you think the chances are of the countdown buzzer going
off at the Royal Rumble and hearing Joe Hendry's theme, I'd say they're pretty
damn high. If he still is over in January as he is right now,
let's talk about aew. I thought Dynamite was a kick ass show on
Wednesday with a lot going on. The owen Hart tournaments are now done.
They are finished. Brian Danielson finally won a belt, the owen Hart Belt,
the Pink Belt. But now he gets to challenge for the aw World
Championship again. Swerve Strickland did all in. Tony Kahn really wants Brian to
get that moment at Wembley. I was hoping it would be Hangman. He
and Brian had a hell of a match, pay per view caliber, restaurant
quality, as Jim Ross would say. By the way, I just saw
Jr. Underwent surgery on his wrist the other day. Apparently that went well.
He didn't say how it happened or why, but I know he's fallen
in the past. I hope he didn't fall again. You know last time
he tripped over the cord to his seatpat machine getting out of bed in the
middle of the night and hit his head I think on the end table.
There are a lot of older people who die from that. So he got
a black eye and that was about as bad as it was. He's just
had a really bad streak of bad luck with his health recently. But anyway,
Hangman went to the Young Bucks later on in the show after Swerve Strickland
announced that he would be leading Team AW in the Blood and Guts match next
week, and Hangman told the elite, I want in. So he is
going to be the fifth man because that's how he gets his hands on Swerve.
Two weeks after All In, they're coming back with All Out in Chicago.
I think that would be a great place for him to challenge Swerve for
the title. But then again, I mean, at the rate Tony Kahan
is throwing pay per view quality matches out there on TV, they're liable to
turn around and do it on Dynamite. In two weeks. On the women's
side, Mariah May beat Willow Nightingale to win the Owen Hart Tournament, and
what followed was truly one of the best segments in Dynamite history. It was
one of the best closing angles in Dynamite history, and that is no exaggeration.
From day one, when Mariah May came to AW from stardom. They
took the story from the plot of the movie All About Eve Ties in directly
with Tony Storm's timeless gimmick when she started acting like the aging Hollywood starlet and
she gets to befriended by the younger protege who she takes under her wing like
her understudy. I even said they should have Mariah's substitute for Tony in some
of her matches as her understudy. They could have the ring announcer, say,
tonight playing the role of Tony Storm. Mariah may right, like really
lean into the gimmick. But that was the plan, you know, with
the twist being that in the end, it was all part of Mariah's master
plan to usurp Tony as the star or in this case, the champion.
So when I say it was a shocking heel turn, I don't mean it
like, oh my god, I can't believe Mariah turned on Tony. It
was the way in which she did it and when they did it that was
so shocking, Like I should have seen it coming, but I wasn't expecting
it so soon as in the same night that she won the tournament, it
became the number one contender. But there they were skipping merrily up the aisle,
you know, to the Owen Cup Trophy. And I thought Tony was
laying it on a little thick. I'm like, you know what, this
woman just became number one contender for your title. I thought maybe Tony was
going to turn on her. But as soon as Mariah grabbed that owen belt
off the stand the podium on stage, she blasted Tony in the head with
it, and the crowd was stunned. I was stunned just by how violent
the attack was. Tony did a blade job for it, and Mariah,
I mean, we see blood all the time on this show, but not
usually with the women, and I can't remember a blade job with the women
like this. And Mariah looked like an absolute fucking psycho out there. She's
whipping her with the belt. She's striking her in the head repeatedly with Tony's
own high heel shoe. The irony being that for over a year now,
Tony has been telling people to watch for the shoe. The one person who
should have known better than anyone to watch for the shoe got her brains beat
in with the shoe. And Mariah didn't look like she was holding back either.
Those were some vicious shots that she was laying in. I'm sure Tony
told her beforehand, hey, don't hold back, and she didn't. She
also knogged Luther off the stage and he took this hilarious bump down through a
table, and we had this great visual of Mariah May holding up Tony's storm
by her. She's on her knees and she's just drenched in blood with Mariah
standing there behind her. And then they pan out and they have the graphic
up for the Wembley match on screen. It all in. He got Mariah
rubbing her face in the blood, fans chanting you sick fuck at her.
This was fantastic, This was This was just an unbelievable angle here. I
only wish they would have saved the blood for the end of the show only
and not had Brian Danielson out there in the opening match of bleeding like a
fucking pig. I mean, it wasn't even needed there, right, I
mean, think about it, like Hangman and Brian. I know, it's
the finals of the Owen and Brian probably wanted to go balls out and he
loves the bleed. That's one of the reasons he came to aw No joke.
Had this conversation with Vince McMahon I want to bleed, you can't bleed.
But if you think about it, in that match, the story was
Brian's neck. He didn't have to fucking bleed, yo. But it's aw
Tony's gonna let them do whatever the hell they want to do. If Brian
Danielson wants to bleed in the finals of the O and you really think Tony
is gonna say no, He's gonna put his foot down. Of course not.
Maybe he didn't even tell Tony. He probably just went out there and
did it. But this is up there among the greatest betrayals in wrestling that
I have ever seen. That closing visual was just done to perfection. They
could not have pulled this off any better than they did. That's how you
set the stage for your women's world title match on your biggest show of the
year. I only hope they didn't peak too early because they're still six weeks
to go before Wembley. MJF versus Will Osprey look to be the direction for
all In, but they threw us a curveball by having MJF brow out the
challenge to Osprey to a match for this Wednesday on Dynamite in Little Rock,
Arkansas. I think North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Osprey said yes.
So for the first time ever, we are getting MJF against will Ospray for
the international title on TV in front of twenty one hundred people instead of fifty
thousand in London. Are we sure John Cena is the only one having a
retirement tour because it feels like Tony Kahn is trying to blow through all the
big will Osprey matches as quickly as he can. They already knocked out Danielson,
they knocked out Swerve, Now they're going to knock out the MJF one.
He's only been signed since well he's been signed since last year, but
he only showed up in February. But it is happening. It's not going
to be an angle or a bait and switch. They're advertising it. They're
going to open the show with it. I believe they're giving the match away
this week. Reason being, Tony is trying to load up these Dynamites as
much as he can because they are in the home stretch when it comes to
negotiations with Warner Brothers Discovery for their next media rights deal. We know the
numbers have not been great. They have fallen off from where they used to
be. Anybody telling you that ratings don't matter anymore is lying to you.
Don't listen to those people. They do matter. If they didn't matter,
we would not be getting MJF against Will Osprey and Swerve against Kazushka Okada on
the same show this week out of nowhere, Swerve throughout the challenge to Okada
Champion against champion, and it's happening this week since both met are in blood
and Guts, which by the way, is for next week's Dynamite. So
if you don't think that Tony Khan is not trying to impress mister David Zaslov
as he calls him, open your eyes and pay attention. He's got a
few hundred million reasons why he wants these shows to do well. What doing
well even means for Dynamite anymore, I don't even know. I mean,
the show last week pulled in six hundred ninety one thousand viewers. Their demo
number was the third lowest of the entire year. I don't know what they
would consider a success, And really the only ones who matter here are Warner
Brothers, Discovery and what they think are a success. That's really all that
matters here. If they draw seven hundred thousand viewers and they think that that's
a success, then that's what matters. You know more than you know Joe
Blow on Twitter. So I don't know what their metric is for success when
it comes to these numbers on these shows. But when you load the show
up like they are this week, if you can't pull in at least eight
hundred thousand viewers, and I don't see how that could be seen as anything
but a disappointment. And they haven't touched eight hundred k since they put CM
Punk back on TV to pop a number back in April, that doesn't seem
very likely. Anybody thinking that, oh it's a given they're gonna do eight
or nine hundred thousand this week. I think you're in for a root awakening,
is what I think. M Pack won a four way match later in
the show to earn the right to challenge for the International title at Wembley Stadium
so he could get his Wembley moment. He says, well, if that's
the case and he's getting that title shot at Wembley, MJF is not walking
into Wembley then as the International champion, which could mean a Daniel Garcia return
on Wednesday to cost MJF his match, which would then give us MJF against
Daniel Garcia at all in with Will Osprey defending the international title against Pack.
That that would be a hell of a match MJF against Garcia. They've got
a hell of a task in front of them to convince me that that is
the best match for MJF on that show. It'd be a hell of a
spot for Daniel Garcia. Would put MJF at best fourth from the top at
all in, behind the world title match, behind Osbray and Pack, and
behind Tony Storm and Mariah May maybe even Mercedes against britt Baker. But at
least MJF and Garcia they have a big angle behind him. Mercedes and Brittain.
They really don't all right, Britches showed up and asked for a match.
Let's take some mailbag questions. You can always email me the Solo Monster
at gmail dot com. Please include your name of where you are from when
you write in. Josh from Blaine, Minnesota, been listening since twenty seventeen.
A lot of your opinion about possible matches for brock lesnar if and when
he returns mainly nxten names or newer guys that debuted on the main roster,
and was wondering which of these five stars you would like to see him in
the ring with the most, Ilia Dragonov, bron Breaker, Trick Williams,
Oba Femei, or Jacob fought to Well. The names that jump out of
me right away are Ilia, Dragonov, bron Breaker, and Jacob Fat two.
So I think in brockwre to come back, I'd love to see him
wrestle summer all of those guys Oba Feme. I mean, I don't see
that happening anytime in the near future. I think he's still got some time
in NXT. That would be another one, honestly, all of them except
Trick Trick, I don't see Trick against Brock. That one doesn't jump out
at me is like, man, I can't wait to see Trick Williams against
Brock Lesner. I want to see Brock in there with some of these guys
that you know they hit hard or they can match him size wise. Like
the one of all of these five, if I had to settle on one,
would be Jacob fat too. I think Jacob Fat two and Brock Lesner
would be just the battle of the two freak athletes. But I mean they're
all freaks in their own way, like bron Breaker is a fucking freak.
But I just think Lesner and Jacob Fatwo would be a lot of fun.
Carlos from Bayshore, New York. I was listening to you and JD on
Tuesday, Love the show, by the way, thank you very much,
And when you guys were talking about John Cena's potential WrestleMania opponent, it got
me thinking of the potential WrestleMania forty one card. I am personally in favor
of having seen his chase for seventeen happen at Mania and agreed that he should
face and lose to Gunther, with The Rock most likely having a match on
that show against either Roman or Cody. And he says, my dream card
has Rock Roman and Drew Cody. He thinks Drew should get a title run.
Can't see that happening with Gunther on Raw. Should see his final WrestleMania
match be a Night one or Night two main event Night one, it would
be Night one. The Rock gave Cody his moment on Night two this year.
He was very generous. If he wrestles again next year, He's not
wrestling Night one again. He's getting Night to So it almost doesn't even matter
who the Rock's opponent is. If it's Cody, if it's Roman, you
could pencil that in right now, that's going to be your Night two made
event. So if anything, Senior would have to settle for Night one Roderick
from Baltimore, Maryland. While Finn Baalor has no doubt had a successful run
in WWE, it still feels underwhelming. I feel like it traces all the
way back to twenty sixteen when he became the first Universal Champion, only to
surrender it the very next night due to injury. It never felt like he
fully regained the momentum he had during that summer when he was a top pick
for Raw and beat Roman reigns and seth rollins on his way to the title.
Had Balor not gotten hurt and was able to have that run as Universal
Champion, do you see his WWE run going any differently? Do you think
Balor would have been a bigger player in the company or would he have ended
up where he is now as a solid role player and contender who is not
quite viewed as the guy. Finn Baalor was never going to be the guy,
so we could just dismiss that right now. Not under Vince McMahon,
he was never going to be the guy, and I think ultimately he would
have settled into the role that he's basically in right now. You're asking me
if I think that that injury that derailed that title run in twenty sixteen would
have an impact on where he is right now in twenty twenty four, and
I'm gonna say no, I think ultimately he would have ended up more or
less in the same place that he's in now. It definitely derailed his momentum.
I definitely think he could have had more time on top. Would he
still be a top top player in this company though beyond that period, No,
I don't think so. It's like Kevin Owens having the Universal title,
right he was the Universal Champion and he had a run with it, and
then Goldberg beat him for it, and he hasn't held a world title since,
or a title of the Universe. I guess you would say, man,
fuck that Universal title. I'm glad they don't acknowledge it anymore. But
Owens has been in the mix right. Owens has been a reliable role player
for them and whatever they need him for, whether it's an upper mid card
feud. He was the Intercninental champion a bunch of times, I think the
US champion as well. Of late, he's been involved in the Bloodline stuff.
He's been in a pretty prominent position. He was literally just in the
main event of Money in the Bank last weekend, and that's kind of the
role the Balor is it. You know, he would have had his run
as Universal Champion, and I think he would have settled into the same type
of role. But he was never going to be the guy. He just
wasn't going to be. Not when this company had other people like Roman Reigns
and Cody Rhodes, where John Cena was still kind of around at the time,
it was never gonna be Balor Marlin from Dallas, Texas by way of
Memphis, Tennessee. Although we are not getting Swerve against Hangman at Wembley,
I feel like that match not going or he says that match is not going
to be a clean finish, and what I mean by that is I got
a feeling a jealous Hangman is going to show up and try and cost Swerve
the title out of pure rage and jealousy. And at the same time,
I think Nigel McGinnis will make his move and attack Danielson and set up their
match for the next Hay per view. What do you think of this idea?
I know it sounds overbooked, but I don't know about a clean win
over either of the guys at Wembley. I think they need to tread very
carefully because you don't want to have your main event at Wembley Stadium derailed by
a bunch of overbooking and interference, and that's not the way Tony Kah usually
books these shows. I think Brian Danielson going to the main event at all
in it's either going to be Danielson with a hard fought win or Danielson with
a heart fought loss. I don't see Hangman getting involved in that. Now
you say that you have Nigel McGinnis making his move and attacking Danielson to set
up their match at the next event, which would be all out, I
think that's a complete waste. You've had a year to build to Nigel McGinness
if he was ever going to come out of retirement. This is the time
and place to do it. It's I mean, think about it, Nigel,
Okay, you got Wembley Stadium coming up, and you're gonna shoot an
angle on that show with him to set up his return match, his first
match in like a decade two weeks later in Chicago. What sense does that
make? You Either do the match at Wembley or you don't. And Nigel
doesn't have to come out of retirement, and he could just be an announcer
and do his magic shows that he does every now and then. But if
ever he was going to come out of retirement for a match, it would
be at Wembley against Brian Danielson. They opted not to do that, whether
that was a Tony Kahn call or Nigel McGinnis call. Maybe he doesn't want
to come out of retirement. But to me, if you were going to
do the match, but do it two weeks later in Chicago, I mean,
what the fuck would be the point? It's like what I said going
into Forbidden Door, where it's like, you can't put the world title on
will Osprey for a bunch of different reasons, But why the hell are you
gonna put the world title on will Ospray In New York on Long Island two
months before you have this huge stadium show in London. If anything, you
would belt him there. You don't do it two months beforehand in New York.
It would be just completely ridiculous. That's how I look at this.
I think it would be ridiculous to do the Nigel McGuinness match anywhere but Wembley's
Stadium. Dak from Saint Paul, Minnesota. It seems like outside of the
Big Four shows, WWE pls look to be about five matches only. What
do you think of WWE returning to the brand specific plees? It would allow
more talent to be on the shows and be able to add some variety.
Obviously the Big Four and Saudi shows would be co branded, but why not
have the others be brand specific? And I more so mean it like it
was with the OG split, where it was every other month, not two
brand specific pls in the same month like in twenty sixteen. What do you
think? Yeah, that was just a terrible fucking idea and we don't ever
have to go back to that. The uh you know, the two brand
specific pls in the same month. My issue with a lot of those OG
brand specific shows was that they weren't worthy of fifty bucks. They weren't worthy
of the price tag. You know now you can get them for twelve bucks
with a Peacock subscription. I still don't see the point in doing them if
you're gonna switch off because most of these shows, I just don't think it
works because of their schedule. Most of these shows are gonna be co branded.
You need talent from Ron SmackDown. So let's game this out. You
have the Royal Rumble right January February, you have the Royal Rumble. You're
gonna have talent from Bull shows, The Elimination Chamber, You're gonna have talent
from Bull shows, WrestleMania, You're gonna have talent from both shows. Money
in the Bank, You're gonna have talent from both shows. Two Saudi shows
throughout the year, you're gonna have talent from both shows. SummerSlam you're gonna
have talent from both shows. Survivor Series, You're gonna have talent from both
shows. That's eight shows right there that need to be co branded. So
are you gonna have one raw exclusive show in March and then not have another
one? Not have a SmackDown exclusive one until what June September. It just
doesn't work. I just don't see the point in doing that. You know,
you didn't have elimination chamber and money in the bank. I don't think
when they started doing the uh like the OG days of doing the brand specific
shows, right, because they didn't start with the gimmick pay per views really
until what was like oh nine, I think right. I'm pretty sure they
were doing the brand specific shows before that, so back then you didn't have
elimination Chamber, you didn't have money in the bank, which have to be
co branded. It just doesn't work. I don't like that, Michael.
I just watched the last pay per view CM Punk was part of before leaving
WWE and forgot how the crowd really didn't like the Royal Rumble match. I
don't remember did you like the event or did you feel like the John Cena
Randy Orton match was boring? I thought the match was okay. Brian should
have at least been in the rumble and Punk could have won the thing.
Also, I found it funny that the first two entrants in the Rumble match
were Seth Rollins and CM Punk. The possible main event four Night one of
WrestleMania. The sena Orton match. Boy, you're taking me back now of
the dark days. The sena Orton match in twenty fourteen. It wasn't awful.
It just wasn't really any good. I had just seen them work the
same match, I think, more or less at the Madison Square Garden House
show a few weeks before this. But the crowd shot all over it and
they chanted Daniel Bryan. They crapped all over that match. Punk should not
have won the Rumble. Brian should have won the Rumble, but they were
too stubborn to realize it. You know. Them bringing back Batista to win
the Royal Rumble and challenged Randy ort In to WrestleMania in the middle of the
Rise of Daniel Brian was just as tone deaf as what The Rock did this
year, every bit as tone deaf as The Rock coming back in the middle
of Cody's story to challenge Roman Reigns a WrestleMania, and both times they at
least changed plans and did the right thing. The twenty fifteen Royal Rumble was
even worse. Rumble match was even worse. Like it's one thing to fuck
up the rumble one time to fuck it up two consecutive years. Takes a
special kind of talent. Mark from Florida. I've always wanted to know your
thoughts on Takeshi Moorshima, Any memories of him from Ring of Honor or matches
of his that you would recommend. Do you think that we will ever get
a Dark Side of the Ring featuring his story? Yeah? You know,
Marishima is one of the sadder what if stories in wrestling For me. He
was a super athletic big man from Japan, made his bones in pro wrestling
Noah. When he first showed up in the States, he was unstoppable,
you know, he was this monster, and he had a memorable run as
the Ring of Honor World champion. He came in not long after I first
got into Ring of Honor. I started attending shows in two thousand and six.
He came in in two thousand and seven, so I got to see
a lot of those matches in person, and the two that I would recommend
most are his battles with Brian Danielson. The first one where Brian suffered a
detached retina and somehow kept wrestling for another fifteen minutes. I don't know how
the man almost lost his eye. Then we got eyepatch Brian. For a
while, I wasn't the least bit surprised that he and brack Lesner had such
a great Survivor series. Anybody who saw those Danielson Morishima matches knew how well
that dynamic would work. The whole you know, David and Goliath thing.
But also their last match at Final Battle in two thousand and eight was their
best one. I was at that one. I think that may have been
the last match that Marishima ever wrestled in the US. I know it was
his last match in Ring of Honor. I'll never forget. You know,
the first time I ever saw Marishima alive, it was at the Manhattan Center
and right on the corner, they've got a place called the TikTok Diner.
You know, you look over and there's Madison Square Garden basically across the street,
like it's in the shadows. But we would always stop there to grab
food, either before the show or after the show is over. And that
night, after the show, my brother and I we walk in and we
sit down and I see this giant man sitting in a booth like halfway across
the diner, got his back turned and he's sitting in this booth that had
to be far too small for him. But I said, man, that's
Morishima. And I had to walk by his table to go to the bathroom.
I wasn't going to bother him or anything, but I look over and
I wish I could remember what he was eating, but he had like two
full plates of food, and I just remember thinking to myself, Wow,
like big boys eating well tonight. He was a special talent, you know.
Wwe actually just released his two tryout matches from two thousand and eight on
their new Vault chat al on YouTube. Funny enough, you know. He
wrestled Charlie Hassen one and then Jamie Noble in the other. I don't know
if that's why you decided to send this question in this week or if that
was just a coincidence, but if you haven't seen those two tryout matches,
you can go watch them. Of course, they sent him to the ring
to the fucking Orient Express theme song, because of course they did. But
after that roh Front, he went back to Japan full time and his career
just fell off. Not right away, but you know it was several years
later he retired. He was only thirty seven when he called it quit.
I looked up his birthday. He was only thirty seven when he called it
quit. He claimed at the time it was due to being diagnosed with diabetes.
That's not why he retired, and I think he admitted that later on.
That wasn't the actual reason. That was the cover reason. He just
ended up in a really bad place, and he ended up I think,
depressed and broke and homeless for a while. He got in trouble with the
law. I know he assaulted a cab driver once. He broke both his
cheek bones. He had no money and he figured that he could just get
somebody else to pay his fare, so he got in the cab. He
wrote around for a while, and after a while the driver was like,
hey, you know, he wants to be paid, and Marishima beat him
up. He lost a ton of weight. Any photos I've seen of him
from like the last I don't know, eight or nine years, maybe ten
years, he lost so much weight, like he almost looks unrecognizable. It's
just really sad how it all turned out for him, And honestly sounds like
he has some serious mental health issues that need to be addressed. I hope
he is getting them addressed. There's been no news about him in the last
several years. I tried to find something, and I mean, I assume
he's alive or else we would have heard otherwise. But whatever he's doing,
it's been very quiet. I hope he's got his life together somewhat. I
think he would make a good choice for a dark Side of the Ring episode,
especially look, they've done episodes on you know, less well known people
in wrestling. At least here he's worked against people who are well known on
TV now like Kevin Owens and Brian Danielson and Nigel McGuinness. They couldn't get
Owens for it, but maybe they could get some of the aw folks you
know that worked with him to go on camera and talk about him. Clark
from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, I remember you saying that you disliked
the WWF so much in nineteen ninety five, to the point that you nearly
gave up on being a fan, which leads me to asking you this,
what do you think was the worst year for WWE of the two nineteen ninety
five or two thousand and nine. For me, it was two thousand and
nine, because that's when they started having those stupid celebrity guest hosts, when
the pg era was in full effect, the beginning of those stupid gimmick pay
per views, and dx's failed final run. It's reasons like that way I
gave up on WWE the following year because of how terrible two thousand and nine
was. In ninety five, at least Owen Hart and Yoko Zuna were the
best tag team that year. Well, I mean that says it all,
doesn't it. When Owen and Yoko Zuna are the best tag team in the
entire company, that's not exactly a great endorsement of the tag team division or
a great argument to make in favor of that year. I'm just saying Rehet
Hart continued to have great matches against guys like Hakushi, Jean Pierre Lafitte,
Diesel, and the Bulldog, as well as his Nohls bard match with Owen
on Raw, which I think is the most underrated Nohles barred match ever.
So what you're saying is that Brett was the only shining light that year.
I'm glad you said it. If I said it, people would roll their
eyes. I'm glad you said it, not me, he says. Raisor
Ramone and Shawn Michaels had another classic ladder match in Your House started out that
year, which eventually paved the way for them to create their future b pay
per view names in the Attitude era. Nineteen ninety five to me was just
the bump in the road for the WWF. I'm not really sure why you
would cite in your House starting and then using some of the Hay perview titles
for Attitude era shows. I'm not sure how that makes that a better year.
But okay, yes, look, ninety five was a bump in the
road year, but it was still dreadful. Doesn't make it any less horrific
than it was in a lot of different ways. You mentioned, for example,
PG being in full effect in two thousand and nine. If that was
PG, then ninety five was tv Y seven. Okay. Ninety five was
the year where Vince McMahon dropped acid for the first time, and we ended
up with a garbage man, a plumber, an evil dentist, a hog
farmer, Aldo Montoya with a jockstrap on his face. Xanta Clause man tar,
half man half tar, and uh what was the other one? I
was gonna make? Oh fa tou that's right, fa two. The man
who could make a difference? What difference did he make? Do I go
take a piss right before or during his match? Because he was always at
the bottom of the cart. The company was ice cold. We had Brett
Hart feuding with a pirate over a leather jacket. We had a year of
Diesel as champion. That alone is enough to send a shiver up my spine.
The Wayland Mercy gimmick. That could have been something cool, but Spivey
was washed by that point. We had one of the worst King of the
Ring tournaments ever. That year gave us King Mabel. It gave us King
Mabel and Diesel in the main event at Summer slamt For all you people bitching
and moaning about Solo Socoa against Cody Rhoades and how it doesn't feel like a
Summer Slam Maine event, you haven't felt pain until you've watched Diesel and Mabel
lumbering around the ring. I don't want to hear it. Then we got
one of the worst pay per views that I have ever seen. That October
in Your House from Winnipeg with Diesel and Bulldog in the main event, a
match so horrible that Vince McMahon literally threw down his headset in disgust when the
show was over and stormed to the back. But we got some gems.
I don't want to make it sound like it was a completely irredeemable year.
We had some gems that year. We had, mainly from Brett Hart and
Shawn Michaels. As awful as that year was, imagine how much worse it
would have been without Brett and Sean. Brett actually had one of the worst
WrestleMania matches of his life that year with Bob Backlan, but he had great
matches with the British Bulldog where Brett bleda Gusher. That was the in your
House match in Hershey. At the end of the year, Hakushi and you
mentioned Jean Pierre Lafitte that Bulldog match. By the way, I have to
say it, that Bulldog match was even better than their Wembley Stadium match.
He gave Kevin Nash one of the best matches of his life at Survivor Series.
That Diesel heel turn was great. It was about nine months too late,
but it was great. Michaels against Jeff Jarrett and Nashville for the Intercontinental
title. The Sean Razer ladder match at SummerSlam was the only saving grace on
that entire show. Nineteen ninety five was worse. Nineteen ninety five was worse.
There was a lot that I did not like about two thousand and nine.
Also, really, i'll be honest with you, a lot of those
early years after I started doing the sound off, Like, I look back
on those years now, like nine and twenty ten, and you know,
they weren't great. They really weren't, and a lot of them blend together
for me. They don't really stand out now. As I recall though,
about two thousand and nine, SmackDown was not bad. It was mostly raw
that was crap, especially with all the guest host stuff. You know,
For every Bob Barker or Jesse Ventur, there were half a dozen terrible ones.
The DX reunions, they all sucked. Every single one of them sucked.
I never liked them. I didn't like it in two thousand and six.
I didn't like it in two thousand and nine. They were just watered
down versions of what DX used to be like the first two iterations of DX,
the original, and then when Triple H took over in ninety eight,
they brought an xpock in the Outlaws. Like that was DX at its best.
Everything that followed, like again from six on, all those reunions and
the glowsticks and everything, it was just to sell merch. That was it.
They had the one segment where they distorted Vince McMahon's voice and everybody laughed
at him. That was kind of funny. But you know, outside of
that, I can't think of a single moment from those last two DX runs
that I remember fondly or really give a shit about. But two thousand and
nine gave us one of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time with Shawn Michaels
and the Undertaker. The Cmpung Jeff Hardy stuff was really good. That was
on SmackDown the Jericho. Mystereo stuff was really good. So it was a
stronger year than ninety five. I can safely say that Neil from Chicago,
if Brett Hart versus Goldberg never happened, when do you think Brett would have
retired from the rank. I think Brett was forty two or forty three when
he retired. If he had stayed healthy, he could have kept wrestling into
his late forties easily, maybe fiftiesh That would have taken him well into the
ruthless aggression era in WWE, because I have no doubt he would have ended
up back wrestling for Vince. If not right after WCW died, then within
a few years, like like all those other guys, Goldberg and Hogan Steiner,
they sat home and collected their money. It may have taken a few
years, but he would have ended up there, and we would have gotten
one more Brett Hart Shawn Michaels match, probably at WrestleMania, Brett Hart against
Randy Orton, Brett Hart against John Cena, Brett Hart against Kurt Angle.
That's the big one for me. Probably would have gotten a Chris Benwil match
in WWE with him Jericho like we would have gotten all of that. He
would have worked with all those key guys. That's what we missed out on
Dallas from Minnesota. If for whatever reason, Rick Flair leaves Jim Crockett Promotion
Slash NWA and forms the Four Horsemen in the WWF, who could you see
in this hypothetical four horsemen, you know, the four Horsemen. It would
not have worked as well in ww I can't say it wouldn't have worked at
all. I don't think it would have worked, but I just I can't
say it would not have worked at all. It really was not a faction
that would have fit well with WWF at that time. It really worked a
lot better in the NWA. But Flair and Ted Dbiassi they were very good
friends. I think dbose not doing the cartoony million dollar Man gimmick though,
that's the thing, like like mister Perfect than the million Dollar Man like.
I don't think that a horseman faction, if they're doing those cartoonish gimmicks works.
It would have to be Dbass, it would have to be Kurt Hennig
like those guys would have made great horsemen back then. I think someone like
Paul Arndorf could have been interesting as a choice. He could have been the
power of the group. It depends on the timeline here, we're talking mid
eighties, late eighties. I think Bobby Heenen could have been in the role
of JJ Dillon. If you're talking eighties, aren't in Tully they were already
there working as the Brainbusters. So Flair could have reformed the Horsemen with most
of the key players and then just add one more guy in like Hennig or
maybe Rick Rude, you know, and again put Bobby with them, and
there you go. You got a WWE version of the Four Horsemen. But
I just don't think it would have worked for more than maybe a year.
I mean, Vince would have fed them to Hogan and I think that would
have been the end of it. Plus he marketed the product of Kids,
so so many of those Flair promos and those Horseman promos would have been neutered.
It just wouldn't have been the same. And David from Newark, New
Jersey, what are your five favorite Black and Gold NXT takeover specials and your
five favorite Black and Gold NXT takeover matches? Oh? I don't know about
us. The specials, I have no idea, But I'll give you my
five favorite black and white or black and white, black and gold black and
Gold era takeover match. I'll give that to you. And this is not
in any particular order. I'm just spitting them out here. Sasha Banks and
Bailey first Brooklyn Takeover is on the list. Johnny Gargano against Andrade This is
when he was still androde Cianalmus Takeover Philadelphia. Those are the two greatest NXT
matches that I have ever seen. Dy against the Revival at the Toronto Takeover.
The first one one of the greatest tag team matches I've ever seen,
Johnny Gargano against Adam Cole at the Takeover in New York that was right before
WrestleMania. That was their two out of three falls match. And Shinsky Nakamura's
debut against Sammy's Ain at Takeover Dallas. I was fortunate enough to be in
the building for three of those five, and the atmosphere was just incredible.
Black and Gold NXT was just something else. It was something very special.
So thank you guys for the questions. I appreciate it. There were a
bunch of others that I was not able to get to, but I'm still
trying to comb through it all and we'll save some for next week. So
get any new questions you might have on into me Theosolomonster at gmail dot com.
I wanted to rely on them a little bit more this week. AU
is again I'm under the weather here, so I figured let's try to get
a mailbag in here, even though the show I know wasn't as long as
it usually is, but I'm fucking dying here, so I'm glad we got
through that, and thank you for tuning into the show this week. I
will be back with you next Sunday, as I am every weekend for another
SoundOff. That'll be episode eight seventy one and live on YouTube. This week.
Coming up after Raw Dynamite and SmackDown Dynamite in particular is a loaded show
two hundred and fiftieth episode MJF and will Osprey for the first time ever.
We'll talk about that during the week. Of course, I'll be live on
Tuesday Night with JD on his channel for Tuesday Night Tight, which continues to
kick ass. So thank you for the support there, and we'll do it
all over again next Sunday. So until then, be well, stay safe,
have yourselves a great week, and I will see you for more sound
off episode eight seventy one. Until then, take care, guys. The
Solemn Monsters sounds off, So if you're not hacked, hop on X.
All these wrestlers getting hacked, you know, I used to make fun of
the wrestlers who would post something really fucking stupid, and then they would be
like, who are good hocked? It's like, no, you didn't,
but now they really are. Now they really are getting hacked. What is
their password? Like Hulk Hogan, for example, what is his password?
Brother, Lex Luger, what's your password? Total package? Maybe it's a
wrestler thing, heaven says, I would laugh my ass off if that isn't
Hogan's password. I'm telling you, I guarantee Hogan's password was either brother,
dude, or Jack and then he got fucking hacked. Change your passwords.
The Solemn Monster sounds off each week, bursting with contact, podcast predictions,
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